Musings and Photos about Life and Real Estate Development in Post-Industrial Brooklyn and New York City

Saturday, July 21, 2007

The Modern Continues to Improve Life on N. 7th St.: Water, Sewers & Crack Edition

The development known as "The Modern" on N. 7th Street in Williamsburg between Driggs and Roebling continues to be a source of joy to its neighbors. There are serious concerns that it is destabilizing adjoining buildings and that no shoring has been put in place. On Sunday, we took another photo of the way the building is undermining the sidewalk. We were going to run that, until we got this email from a resident about a new problem who says the use of a fire hydrant to supply water for the site has apparently caused a leak and may lead to serious problems. The contractor was asked to stop or to switch to another fire hydrant. He refused, saying that one up the street doesn't provide enough pressure. (Note to FDNY: If there's not enough pressure for a construction site, there might not, uh, be enough water pressure if something on the block is going up in flames.) In any case, here's some of the email:

The photos above are from the front of my home on North 7th St. The Hydrant has been used for eight hours a day since Monday to supply water to a new construction at the Modern Williamsburg up the block. On Wednesday I noticed that water was coming out of a crack in the sidewalk by the gate of my home. I went up the block and asked the Foreman to shut the hydrant.

He refused and stated that they have a permit to use the hydrant. The pictures above were taken about 10 minutes ago. The water is coming out faster than yesterday and there are now two holes forming in the crack that water is coming out of. I did call 311 on Wednesday and I filed a compliant #1679469. I was told the DEP would come out and take care of this problem. So far no DEP, but lots of water.

I now fear that I could get stuck with the bill if this gets any worse...I can get a bill for thousands of dollars because the Contractor up the block has a permit. I could use some help. I don’t have $4,000. and I fear that if this is not resolved, the whole sidewalk could collapse.

We would think it wouldn't be asking much for the city to do its job on N. 7th Street before this development causes serious problems for the neighbors.

UDPATE: As it turns out, the problem is even worse:

It turns out the machine that the water was being used for busted the sewage line yesterday. We have reps from The D.O.B, D.E.P, Keyspan and Con Edison at the site along with 5 various trucks. Work started at 7am and will go through the day and might go into Sunday if the Sewer line is as badly damaged as a Rep from D.E.P thinks it is. This site has already been given a stop work order for nearly damaging the L train tunnel that is right under the site. As soon as they were allowed to go back to work they damaged the sewer line.